An official history of Israel's intelligence community contends that the United States regularly gathers information on what is widely considered an undeclared Israeli nuclear weapons program, Reuters reported yesterday (see GSN, April 23).
"The United States has been after Israel's nonconventional capabilities and what goes on at the decision-making echelons," employing electronic bugs and trained personnel at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv to carry out "methodical intelligence gathering," former Israeli internal security agency officer Barak Ben-Zur wrote in Masterpiece: An Inside Look at Sixty Years of Israeli Intelligence.
Ben-Zur refused to give Reuters further details on the alleged espionage, but said the operations were mostly harmless due to close ties between Washington and Tel Aviv.
"At the end of the day, the United States does not want to be surprised," he said. "Even by us."
When questioned on the allegations, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv replied: "We don't comment on intelligence matters."
According to declassified Defense Department records published in 2004, Israel was believed to possess 80 nuclear warheads. Former President Jimmy Carter said in May that Tel Aviv controls an atomic arsenal of roughly 150 warheads (Dan Williams, Reuters, Dec. 10).